A Woman's Place · Episode 3 of 12 · 22 min
The Convent, the Casa, and the Patron: Sor Juana's Two Doors
In colonial Spanish America a respectable woman had two doors: the casa or the convent. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz chose the convent as the only room of her own, wrote the hemisphere's first great defense of women's right to learn, and was silenced for it. Most Indigenous and enslaved women stood outside the honor system entirely, controlled by the patron rather than the chaperone.
Who's who
- Sor Juana Ines de la CruzHieronymite nun, poet, and theologian
- Manuel Fernandez de Santa CruzBishop of Puebla who published her critique
- Francisco de Aguiar y Seijasmisogynist Archbishop of Mexico
- Maria Luisa Manrique de LaraCountess of Paredes, vicereine and Sor Juana's patron
Where it happens
- Convent of Santa Paula, Mexico CityHieronymite convent that was Sor Juana's home
- San Miguel Nepantla, New SpainSor Juana's birthplace
- Puebla, New Spainseat of the bishop who published her critique
Timeline
- 1505Leyes de Toro require a husband's license for married women to contract
- 1669Juana professes at the Hieronymite convent of Santa Paula
- 1689Inundacion Castalida published in Madrid
- November 1690bishop publishes her critique as the Carta Atenagorica
- March 1, 1691she completes her Respuesta a Sor Filotea
- April 17, 1695dies nursing her sisters during an epidemic
Still debated
Her birth year, 1648 or 1651, is unresolved. Scholars also differ on why she fell silent, either coerced surrender or a negotiated, possibly genuine conversion, and the famous forty-scholars exam and blood signature come from hagiographic tradition.